How can we not lose faith in Krishna when we are faced with lots of suffering?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question, how can we not lose faith in Krishna when we face a lot of suffering? Answer, by educated vision. If we expect that by the practice of Krishna consciousness, we will become free from all misery, then we have understood the education that Krishna offers in the Bhagavad Gita. For a devotee who studies the Bhagavad Gita properly, the miseries of life reinforce the faith in Krishna, not reinforce the doubt about Krishna.
Because Krishna tells that this world is the Kaal and Ashwatham, and the devotee experiences misery, then the experience of misery becomes a confirmation of the teachings of Krishna. So only if we have a philosophical and educated notion that by surrender to God I will become free from misery, then we will have doubts. But this doesn’t mean that this world is a place of misery and we are forever condemned to misery.
No. Actually, by the practice of Krishna consciousness, we do become, if not entirely free from misery, we are substantially protected from misery. So basically, the first thing we need to understand is this world is like a hospital.
So whether we are getting treatment or not, because we are sick, we are going to suffer. Everybody is suffering in the hospital. But Krishna’s grace is not that he considers, converts the hospital into a picnic resort and makes this world into a lollipop world where everything will be enjoyable.
But that helps us to gain relief by the treatment. So Krishna consciousness offers us relief from misery in four ways. By education, by purification, by minimization and by absorption.
So by education, we understand that these are the things that will cause me further suffering. These comprise our karma and I should not do them. And that itself, not doing those entangling activities, saves us from a lot of complications in this life as well as consequences in the next life.
For example, smoking, drinking and such things. Beyond that, there is purification. Sometimes we know certain things are wrong, but still we are unable to give them up.
But by Krishna’s mercy, we start chanting Hare Krishna and studying the philosophy and become purified. And that frees us from those drives which drag us down. That is also a big relief thing.
For an addict to become de-addicted is a big relief. We may not have been an alcoholic addict or substance abuser, but we all have our minor addictions. Inability to control watching TV, inability to control eating food, inability to control sleep.
And these also cause frustration. So we become free from these drives. These drives at least come under control by the practice of purification.
Second, by Krishna’s protection. First is minimization. Krishna frees us from misery by minimizing the sinful reactions.
There is a class on my website, How a devotee transcends misery by absorption, which explains all these points in detail. Because this is the answer, so I am keeping it short. But the most important point is absorption.
The fourth point. Actually, even in misery’s term for a devotee, instead of thinking of the miseries, he thinks of Krishna. The shock of those miseries decreases much, much more than what it would have been otherwise.
I wrote a poem long ago. So, rather than blaming Krishna for our problems, or blaming Krishna for not protecting us from our problems, if we take shelter of Krishna, we will find that Krishna is indeed protecting us from our problems. See, problems become as big as we allow them to become.
That means, there are many big problems externally, but the more we think about them, the more we feel overpowered by them, the more we feel choked by them, the more miserable we become. So, life determines our problems, but we determine their size. If we think too much about them, the problems will become bigger and bigger.
But if we don’t think so much about them, instead we think about Krishna, calm our mind down, and then turn towards facing the problems naturally, then we will be able to face those problems in a far more composed and confident and constructive way than what we would have otherwise. So, this way, when sufferings come, what we should understand is not that Krishna is causing the suffering, not that Krishna is not protecting me from suffering. Sufferings are coming because of my karmic reactions to my past misdeeds, and Krishna is giving me the inner strength, the inner wisdom to go through those sufferings and to grow through those sufferings.
So, in this way, when we see through proper philosophical vision, we see that Krishna is there to help us and save us from suffering through education, through purification, through minimization, and through observation.